


One Thousand, One Hundred Thirty-Nine Miles

by theskywasblue



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Road Trip, Self-Discovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-29
Updated: 2011-04-29
Packaged: 2017-10-18 19:32:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/192465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theskywasblue/pseuds/theskywasblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a long road between Odessa, Texas and Sioux Falls, South Dakota</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Thousand, One Hundred Thirty-Nine Miles

**Author's Note:**

> for the prompt "Destination"

He finds Balthazar in a diner in Odessa, Texas, quite by accident. He looks sullen and ruffled, worn around the edges, and is nursing what Castiel understands to be a cheap beer (the kind Dean calls _dog piss draft_ ) lost without his luxuries.

He slips uninvited into the opposite booth. "You look...unhappy."

“Understatement of an eon, _dear brother_ ,” Balthazar scowls over the rim of his beer bottle with the look of a particularly petulant child. It rather suits him. “You do realize I have to get _old_ now.”

“I think it will do you some good. Teach you...moderation.”

Balthazar grunts, gesturing towards Castiel with a jerk of his chin, “You’re settling in, I see.”

“I am making due.” His thrift store clothes are still unfamiliar, heavy and worn in the strangest of places. The jeans have no knees, there is a hole in the heel of his left sock, he had to cut the tag out of his T-shirt because it scratched at the skin on the back of his neck, his jacket pockets are full of rocks from the roadsides and it’s a constant challenge to keep his shoelaces tied; but he is learning to find comfort in all these things, the mundane trappings of a human life.

***

In Oklahoma City, he finds Joshua at the Hambrick Botanical Gardens, tending lilies. They do not grow in careful rows, their petals are not perfect, at times their stems are crooked – but Castiel does not think he has ever seen flowers so beautiful.

They do not speak, but Joshua smiles at him as he admires the gardener’s work; in his eyes, Castiel sees nothing but understanding.

***

He stops, very briefly, in Lawrence, Kansas. It is very much as he remembers it, and he does not linger long.

***

“You’re an angel.”

Castiel is at a mini mart in Auburn, Nebraska buying a pre-paid phone card and a bottle of water with a crumpled handful of bills. The boy is perhaps seven, and his father is absorbed in reading a magazine, two aisles over.

“I was,” Castiel answers without hesitation.

The boy shakes his head, “No, you _are_. There are angels all over, I can see their wings.”

They are there, Castiel knows, an afterimage more than anything, like a scar or a bruise, fading over time. The truth is he feels far lighter without them.

“What does it mean when all the angels are out of heaven?”

“Daniel,” the boy’s father takes him by the shoulder, steers him away, scolding under his breath about talking to strangers. Castiel stretches out the tattered shadows of his wings, and when the lights flicker, Daniel smiles.

It is all the answer he can give.

***

He thinks he glimpses Raphael in Omaha, across a busy intersection, her wings barely a flicker of static, her expression thunderous.

He moves on without acknowledging her, and when he glances back over his shoulder, she is already gone.

***

He arrives at Singer Auto Salvage on a rainy afternoon.

“Still don’t know jack about weather-gear, I see,” Bobby says, gruff but hospitable as he steps aside to allow Castiel through the open door. “Better come in – Lucky for you I’ve got soup on. Just canned, of course.”

“I am very hungry,” Castiel confesses, kicking off his sodden boots, wiping the water from his face.

“Well, make yourself at home. God knows everyone else does.”

Castiel finds a towel in the bathroom and does his best to dry himself, hangs his jacket and his sopping shirt over the shower curtain rod. The clothes in his pack are all similarly soaked, but there is a T-shirt of Dean’s discarded in the space behind the bathroom door which smells only of motor oil and nothing offensive, so he wears that instead.

“So?” Bobby prompts, as he pushes a bowl of chicken noodle soup and a dry but still edible dinner roll across the table when Castiel takes a seat. “Did ya learn anything on this vision quest of yours or not?”

***

“I”m never going to get used to seeing you like this.” Dean drops his duffel bag in the doorway of the living room as Castiel closes the book of lore he is reading and sets it on the end table. Sam is in the kitchen, rooting through the fridge, taking liberties with what he can find since Bobby is already in bed.

“Seeing me like what?”

Dean shrugs, “Just sitting here, reading a book, like you’re some normal guy. I have to be honest, it kinda freaks me out.” He pauses, frowning in the semi-darkness, “Is that my shirt?”

“It was raining when I arrived,” Castiel explains, and Dean nods, granting him the sort of blanket understanding that is typical of their interactions now. They will still fight, when given half a chance, like two wild dogs and will draw just about as much blood in the effort; but there is far more neutral territory between them these days, far fewer mine fields.

“So, rambling man,” Dean drops onto the couch, jostling Castiel with his shoulder, flashing a sharp grin. “How was your trip? Find yourself any wayward former angels?”

Castiel’s head spins for a moment; he lets Dean’s playful smile lead him near the answer. “Yes?”

Dean laughs, “And, how are they holding up?”

“Some very well,” he thinks of Joshua and the carefully wild lilies, the contentment he saw there. “And some...will require more time.”

“Yeah, well...they’ll get there.”

They lapse into comfortable silence. Sam wanders through, heading for the shower, no doubt; acknowledging Castiel and his brother with a nod of his head and a smile sticky with strawberry jam and toast crumbs. It’s well past midnight and Castiel finds himself smothering a yawn against the back of his hand. Dean has no such compunctions and yawns expansively, stretching himself out in his seat until he threatens to spill to the floor in a pile of tired limbs.

“What about you?” he asks finally, blinking at Castiel, all bleary eyes and a warm smile. The back of his hand bumps against Castiel’s thigh and he turns his head, leaning in close. He smells like gun oil and rock salt and his skin is warm in a way that Castiel could never properly appreciate when he was suffused with the cold light of Grace. “Are you getting there?”

“Yes,” Castiel allows himself to smile, the stretch of muscles in his cheeks gently foreign as he moves to bring their mouths together, “I believe I am.”

-End-


End file.
